Are your fundraisers feeling appreciated?

There are millions of articles on why and how a charitable organisation should thank their donors, but while you are focusing on engaging the donors, do not forget the fundraisers. The fundraisers are people who beyond donating put themselves behind the cause, stand up and speak out about your work. They are your ambassadors, and they deserve your full attention and recognition.  

At BetterNow we have just launched a new feature that makes it possible to publically engage with your fundraisers at any time, and as many times you feel like. Read below our top best practices on fundraiser’s relationship management.

Welcome them all

As a charity admin on one of BetterNow’s solutions—Branded or Platform—, you have you can see when people create a new fundraiser for your organisations. Find some time once or twice a week to log into your fundraising platform and welcome your new fundraisers. At the beginning of this journey, the engagement and motivation levels are high, and a personal message can mean a lot.

More than a message sender, be a human

Many times, on the Internet, we choose to send and sign messages on behalf of the organisation that we represent, hiding our real name and embracing a formal tone of voice. From our experience, adding a personal touch to the communication has most of the time proved to be a positive thing.

For example, we have A/B tested email campaigns, 50% of them have been sent on behalf of BetterNow, and the other 50% were sent and signed by one of our employees. As you can imagine, the ones sent by a real person have been significantly more successful than the other ones.

Our advice is not to fear personal communication. While building relationships with your supporters, make sure that you are being real, honest, and authentic. Always use a personal name instead of official titles and fancy signatures.

When to thank them?

It’s difficult, maybe even impossible, to give you a perfect recipe for when to get in touch with your fundraisers. Soon you will realize that people fundraise differently. You will probably have fundraisers that are reaching their goal in a week, and fundraisers who will collect throughout the whole year, or for two-three years—like Fredrika does.

Our recommendation is to send a personal message when they start and end the fundraiser, and then keep an eye on their activity and jump in with a line or two when you feel it’s relevant.

On your main dashboard you always have a handy list of all recently ended fundraisers to help you identify these fundraisers. You also receive notifications whenever a fundraiser reaches its end date.

Be relevant and creative

Your messages should connect the fundraiser with the cause. A message saying “Thank you so much for supporting our work!” is an admirable initiative, but a message explaining exactly how their contribution is making a difference is how you show gratitude and build a long-lasting relationship.

And don’t send that thank you message just to mark off something on your to-do list. Use these messages as an opportunity to engage with the fundraisers. Think 360 degrees, mention a recent press release or link to your latest video or blog article. Remember these people are your evangelists, they speak on your behalf.

We hope this new feature will help you build genuine, strong, and long-lasting relationships.

For technical advice check out the article How To Write A Message On A Fundraiser Page on our support forum.

Happy fundraising!